TRELUAN
There were fors and againsts, as there are with most things in this
world. Father was sorry for me to leave so soon and go so far, and he
scarce thought the wages what I might now look for. Mother felt with him
about the parting, but mother was a far-seeing woman. She thought the
change would be the best thing for me after my trouble, and she thought
a deal of my being with real gentry. Not but that Mrs. Wyngate's family
was all one could think highly of, but Mr. Wyngate's great fortune had
been made in trade, and there was a little more talk and thought of
riches and display among them than quite suited mother's ideas, and she
had sometimes feared it spoiling me.
'The wages I wouldn't put first,' she said. 'A good home and simple ways
among real gentlefolk--that's what I'd choose for thee, my girl. And
the children are good children and not silly spoilt things, and
straightforward and well-bred, I take it?'
'All that and more,' I answered. 'If anything, they've been a bit too
strict brought up, I'd say. If I go to them I shall try to make Miss
Lally brighten up--not that she's a dull child, but she has the look of
taking things to heart more than one likes to see at her age. And poor
Master Francis--I'm sure he'd be none the worse of a little petting--so
delicate as he is and his lameness.'
'You'll find your work to do, if you go--no fear,' said mother. 'Maybe
it's a call.'
I got to think so myself--and when my lady wrote that all she heard from
Mrs. Wyngate was most satisfactory, I made up my mind to accept her
offer, and told her so when she came down again for a few hours the end
of the week.
We stayed but a fortnight longer at Brayling--and a busy fortnight it
was. I had my own things to see to a little, and would fain have
finished the set of shirts I had begun for father. The days seemed to
fly. I scarce could believe it was not a dream when I found myself with
all the family in a second-class railway carriage, starting from
Paddington on our long journey.
It was a long journey, especially as, to save expense, we had come up
from Brayling that same morning. We were not to reach the little town
where we left the railway till nearly midnight, to sleep there, I was
glad for the poor children's sake to hear, and start again the next
morning on a nineteen miles' journey by coach.
'And then,' said Miss Lally, with one of her deep sighs, 'we shall be at
home.'
I thought there was some content in her sigh this time.
'Shall you be glad, dearie, to be at home again?' I said.
'I fink so,' she answered. 'And oh, I am glad you've comed wif us,
'stead of Sharp. And Francie's almost more gladder still, aren't you,
dear old Francie?'
'I should just think I was,' said the boy.
'Sharp,'--and the little girl lowered her voice and glanced round; we
were, so to speak, alone at one end of the carriage,--Miss Lally, her
cousin and I, for Miss Baby was already asleep in my arms and Miss Bess
talking, like a grown-up young lady, at the other end, with her papa
and mamma--'Sharp,' said Miss Lally, 'really _hated_ poor Francie,
because she thought he told mamma about her tempers. And she made mamma
think he was naughty when he wasn't. Francie and I were frightened when
Sharp went away that mamma would think it was his fault. But she didn't.
Queen spoke to her, and Mrs. Dame' (that was her name for old Sarah)
'did too. And you didn't get scolded, did you, Francie?'
'No,' said Master Francie quietly, 'I didn't.'
He looked as if he were going to say more, but just then Miss Bess, who
had had enough for the time, of being grown up--and indeed she was but a
complete child at heart--got up from her seat and came to our end of the
carriage. Sir Hulbert was reading his newspaper, and my lady was making
notes in a little memorandum book.
'What are you talking about?' said the eldest little sister, sitting
down beside me. 'You all look very comfortable, Baby especially.'
'We are talking about Sharp going away,' replied Miss Lally, 'and
Francie thinking he'd be scolded for it.'
'Oh! do leave off about that and talk of something nicer. Franz is
really silly. If you'd only speak right out to mamma,' she went on,
'things would be ever so much better.'
The boy shook his head rather sadly.
'Now you know,' said Miss Bess, 'they would be. Mamma is never unjust.'
She was speaking in her clear decided way, and feeling a little afraid
lest their voices should reach to the other end--I wouldn't have liked
my lady to think I encouraged the children in talking her over--I tried
to change the conversation.
'Won't you tell me a little about your home?' I said. 'You know it'll
all be quite new to me; I've only seen the sea once or twice in my life,
and never lived by it.'
'Treluan isn't quite close to the sea,' said Master Francis, evidently
taking up my feeling. 'We can see it from some of the top rooms, and
from one end of the west terrace at high tides, and we can hear it too
when it's stormy. But it's really two miles to the coast.'
'There are such dear little bays, lots of them,' said Miss Bess. 'We can
play Robinson Crusoe and smugglers and all sorts of things, for the bays
are quite separated from each other by the rocks.'
'There's caves in some,' said Miss Lally, 'rather f'ightening caves,
they're so dark;' but her eyes sparkled as if she were quite able to
enjoy some adventures.
'We shall be at no loss for nice walks, I see; but how do you amuse
yourselves on wet days?'
'Oh! we've always plenty to do,' said Miss Bess. 'Miss Kirstin comes
from the Vicarage every morning for our lessons, and twice a week papa
teaches Franz and me Latin in the afternoon, and the house is very big,
you know. When we can't go out, we may race about in the attics over the
nurseries. There's a stair goes up to the tower, just by the nursery
door, and you pass the attics on the way. They're called the tower
attics, because there are lots more over the other end of the house.
Francie's room is in the tower.'
It was easy to see by this talk that Treluan was a large and important
place.
'I suppose the house is very, very old?' I said.
'Oh yes! thousands--I mean hundreds--of years old. Centuries mean
hundreds, don't they, Franz?' said she, turning to her cousin.
'Yes, dear,' he answered gently, though I could see he was inclined to
smile a little. 'If you know English history,' he went on to me, 'I
could tell you exactly how old, Treluan is. The first bit of it was
built in the reign of King Henry the Third, though it's been changed
ever so often since then. About a hundred years ago the Penroses were
very rich, very rich indeed. But when one of them died--our great, great
grand-uncle, I think it was--and his nephew took possession, it was
found the old man had sold a lot of the land secretly--it wasn't to be
told till his death--and no one has ever been able to find out what he
did with the money. It was the best of the land too.'
'And they were so surprised,' said Miss Bess, 'for he'd been a very
saving old man, and they thought there'd be lots of money over, any way.
Wasn't it too bad of him--horrid old thing?'
'Queen,' said Miss Lally gravely. 'You know we fixed never to call him
that, 'cos he's dead. He was a--oh, what's that word?--something like
those things in the hall at home--helmet--was it that? No--do tell me,
Queen.'
'You're muddling it up with crusaders, you silly little thing,' said
Miss Bess. 'How could he have been a crusader only a hundred years ago?'
'No, no, it isn't that--I said it was _like_ it,' said Miss Lally,
ready to cry. 'What's the other word for helmet?'
'I know,' said Master Francis, '_vizor_--and----'
'Yes, yes--and the old man was a _miser_, that's it,' said the child.
'Papa said so, and he said it's like a' illness, once people get it they
can't leave off.'
Miss Bess and Master Francis could not help laughing at the funny way
the child said it, nor could I myself, for that matter. And then they
went on to tell me more of the strange old story--how their great
grandfather and their grandfather after him had always gone on hoping
the missing money would sooner or later turn up, though it never did,
till--putting what the children told me together with my lady's own
words--it became clear that poor Sir Hulbert had come into a sadly
impoverished state of things.
'Perhaps the late baronet and his father were not of the "saving" sort,'
I said to myself, and from what I came to hear afterwards, I fancy I was
about right.
After a while my lady came to our end of the carriage. She was afraid,
she said, I'd find Miss Baby too heavy--wouldn't I lay her comfortably
on the seat, there was plenty of room?--my lady was always thoughtful
for others--and then when we had got the child settled, she sat down
and joined in our talk a little.
'We've been telling Martha about Treluan and about the old uncle that
did something with the money,' said Miss Bess.
My lady did not seem to mind.
'It is a queer story, isn't it?' she said. 'Worse than queer,
indeed----' and she sighed. 'Though even with it, things would not be as
they are, if other people had not added their part to them.'
She glanced round in a half impatient way, and somehow her glance fell
on Master Francis, and I almost started as I caught sight of the
expression that had come over her face--it was a look of real dislike.
'Sit up, Francis--do, for goodness' sake,' she said sharply; 'you make
yourself into a regular humpback.'
The boy's pale, almost sallow face reddened all over. He had been
listening with interest to the talking, and taking his part in it. Now
he straightened himself nervously, murmuring something that sounded
like, 'I beg your pardon, Aunt Helen,' and sat gazing out of the window
beside him as if lost in his own thoughts. I busied myself with pulling
the rugs better over Miss Baby, so that my lady should not see my face
just then. But I think she felt sorry for her sharp tone, for when she
spoke again it was even more pleasantly than usual.
'Have you told nurse other things about Treluan, children?' she said.
'It is really a dear old place,' she went on to me; 'it might be made
_quite_ delightful if Sir Hulbert could spend a little more upon it. I
had set my heart on new furnishing your room this year, Bess darling,
but I'm afraid it will have to wait.'
'Never mind, dear,' said Miss Bess comfortingly, in her old-fashioned
way, 'there's no hurry. If I could have fresh covers to the chairs, the
furniture itself--I mean the _wood_ part--is quite good.'
'I did get some nice chintz in London,' said her mamma; 'there was some
selling off rather cheap. But it's the getting things made--everything
down with us is so difficult and expensive,' and my lady sighed. Her
mind seemed full of the one idea, and I began to think she should try to
take a cheerier view of things.
'If you'll excuse me mentioning it,' I said, 'I have had some experience
in the cutting out of chair-covers and such things. It would be a great
pleasure to me to help to make the young ladies' rooms nice.'
'That would be very nice indeed,' said my lady; 'I really should like to
do what we can to brighten up the old house. I expect it will look very
gloomy to you, nurse, till you get used to it. I do want Bess's room to
look better. Of course Lally is in the nursery still, and won't need a
room of her own for a long time yet.'
Miss Lally was sitting beside me, and as her mamma spoke, I heard a very
tiny little sigh.
'Never mind, Miss Lally dear,' I whispered. 'We'll brighten up the
nurseries too, nicely.'
These little scraps of talk come back to my mind now, when I think of
that first journey down to Treluan so many years ago. I put them down
such as they are, as they may help better than words of my own to give
an idea of the dear children and all about them, as they then were.
We reached Treluan the afternoon of the next day. It was a dull day
unfortunately, though the very middle of summer--rainy and gray. Of
course every one knows that there's much weather of that kind in the
west country, but no doubt it added to the impression of gloom with
which the first sight of the old house struck me, I must confess.
Gloom, perhaps, is hardly the word to use; it was more a feeling of
desertedness, almost of decayed grandeur, quite unlike anything I had
ever seen before. For in my former place everything had been bright and
new, fresh and perfect of its kind. Afterwards, when I came to see into
things better, I found there was no neglect or mismanagement; everything
that _could_ be done was done by Sir Hulbert outside, and my lady in her
own department--uphill and trying work though it must often have been
for them.
But that first evening, when I looked round the great lofty hall into
which my lady had led the way, dusky and dim already with the rain
pattering against the high arched windows and a chilly feeling in the
air, the half dozen servants or so, who had come out to meet
us--evidently the whole establishment--standing round, I must own that
in spite of the children's eager excitement and delight at finding
themselves at home again, my heart went down. I did feel so
very far away from home and father and mother, and everything
I had ever known. The first thing to cheer me was when the old
housekeeper--cook-housekeeper she really was--Mrs. Brent, came forward
after speaking to my lady, and shook me kindly by the hand.
'Welcome to Treluan, Nurse Heatherdale,' she said. And here I should
explain that as there was already a Martha in the house, my lady had
expressed her wish that I should be called 'nurse,' or 'Heatherdale,'
from which came my name of 'Heather,' that I have always been called by.
'Welcome to Treluan, and don't go for to think that it's always as dull
as you see it just now, as like as not to-morrow will be bright and
sunny.'
She was a homely-looking body with a very kind face, not Cornish bred I
found afterwards, though she had lived there many years. Something about
her made me think of mother, and I felt the tears rise to my eyes,
though no one saw.
'Shall I show nurse the way upstairs, my lady?' she said. For Mrs. Brent
was like her looks, simple and friendly like. She had never known
Treluan in its grand days of course, though she had known it when things
were a good deal easier than at present; and that evening, when the
children were asleep, she came up to sit with me a bit, and, though with
perfect respect to her master and mistress and no love of gossip in her
talk (for of that she was quite free), she explained to me a few things
which already had puzzled me a little. No praise was too high for Sir
Hulbert with her, and my lady was a really good, high-minded woman. 'But
she takes her troubles too heavy,' said Mrs. Brent; 'she's like to break
her heart at having no son of her own, and that and other things make
her not show her best self to poor little Master Francis, though,
considering he's been here since he was four, 'tis a wonder he doesn't
seem to her like a child of her own. And Sir Hulbert feels it; it's a
real grief to him, for he loved Master Francis's father dearly through
all the troubles he caused them, and anyway 'tis not fair to visit the
father's sin on the innocent child.'
Then she told me how Master Francis's father had made things worse by
his extravagance, half-breaking his young wife's heart and leaving debts
behind him, when he was killed by an accident; and that Sir Hulbert, for
the honour of the family, had taken these debts upon himself.
'His wife was a pretty young creature, half a foreigner. Sir Hulbert had
her brought here with the boy, and here she died, not long before Miss
Lalage was born, and so, failing a son, Master Francis is the heir, and
a sweet, good young gentleman he is, though nothing as to looks. 'Tis a
pity he's so shy and timid in his ways; it gives my lady the idea he's
not straightforward, though that I'm very sure he is, and most
affectionate at heart, though he hasn't the knack of showing it.'
'Except to Miss Lally, I should say,' I put in; 'how those two do cling
together, to be sure.'
'He loves them all dearly, my lady too, though he's frightened of her.
Miss Lally's the one he's most at home with, because she's so little,
and none of Miss Bess's masterful ways about her. Poor dear Miss Lally,
many's the trouble she's got into for Master Francis's sake.'
All this was very interesting to me, and helped to clear my mind in some
ways from the first, which was, I take it, a good thing. Mrs. Brent said
little about Sharp, but I could see she had not approved of her; and she
was so kind as to add some words about myself, and feeling sure I would
make the children happy, especially the two whom it was easy to see were
her own favourites, Miss Lally and her cousin. This made me feel the
more earnest to do my very best in every way for the young creatures
under my care.